How prepared is Kansas City for snow? KCMO, MoDOT share plans for snow removal
The first snow of 2022 is on the way, and Kansas City is hopefully ready, while the state department that oversees snow removal on highways may face some challenges.
MoDOT is warning residents that it’s facing a snow plow driver shortage. The state department said it’s down nearly 30% of the staff needed to cover more than one shift in a statewide storm.
“If a widespread winter storm lasts more than one 12-hour shift, we will not have enough employees to fill all the trucks on the second shift and therefore it will take longer to clear the roads,” Patrick McKenna, MoDOT director, said in a statement. “Delays could be significant and will impact all regions of the state.”
Kansas City public information officer Sherae Honeycutt said that despite the shortage in the state, Kansas City is not understaffed. They’ll have over 400 drivers between multiple departments and employees within the city who are trained, so when there is a weather event they can focus on plowing and clearing snow.
WHAT IS KANSAS CITY’S PLAN FOR SNOW REMOVAL?
The city’s winter snow removal plan includes:
Pretreating the roads with salt, brine, a liquid salt solution and “ice ban” 24 hours or more before storms arrive.
Expanding snow removal service to 24 hours a day on residential routes. (Residential routes used to receive treatment only during the daytime.)
Curb-to-curb plowing on all streets. (Previously, only one travel lane would be cleared.)
Plowing multi-lane arterial streets with multiple trucks to ensure the street is fully cleared on the first pass.
Adding 50 new vehicles to the snow removal team by changing existing vehicles to become plows and rebuilding the existing fleet with newer plows.
Suspending trash and recycling during storms to make drivers available for plowing snow and to reduce the number of other vehicles on the road.
Deploying new technology to track the exact locations of plows, digital plow route management and progress tracking of all routes. Check out the snow plow map here.
Kansas City currently has 290 snow removal vehicles to cover 37 main routes and 66 residential routes, 24 hours a day during a snowstorm.
Main routes, also known as arterial routes, receive this kind of treatment during snowstorms:
Large dump trucks
Plow width with a minimum of 10 feet
Plow and salt
Streets in the arterial routes include Main Street, North Oak Trafficway, Holmes Street, Wornall Road and Barry Road.
The residential routes also receive treatment, but not to that extent. These routes are your neighborhood routes:
Smaller pickup trucks, plus larger trucks where possible
7.5 foot plow width
Plowing and salting
The arterial program for major roads will always begin before the snow starts, as they pre-treat the roads. They’re also on route when it starts snowing.
Plowing streets on the residential program will begin at the beginning of the storm if the storm rolls in during working hours or if the night shift is already working. Otherwise, the residential drivers start their shifts at 6 a.m.
This story was originally published October 20, 2022 at 7:30 AM.
